2011-08-18-Embracing Involvement with Life
Marin #207
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Embracing Your Own Involvement in Life
o 1.2 Group: Marin TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Stillness
3.2.2 Appreciation
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Faith
3.3.2 Materialization
3.3.3 Expectations
3.3.4 Prayer
3.3.5 Angelic Contact
3.3.6 Materialization
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Embracing Your Own Involvement in Life
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Let’s wait about a minute and do some stillness. Even though we are scattered over a few thousand miles, we can trust Mother Spirit and Michael are right with us tying us all together.
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, welcome. We want to thank the two of you tonight for being so much a part of us. Mother, it’s your dimensions, living as your Holy Spirit, that we tap into and actually become part of us–those higher dimensions of your living being that make us super-minded, literally giving us a mentality that is more than what we are physically creating with this organic being of ours.
Michael, your Spirit of Truth is both an invitation to open a door–and that door itself, into an enormous adventure of discovery because God’s truth is totally bottomless, side-less, topless, and unfathomable. It something we will be discovering forever. It’s the Encompassing that holds us. So your Spirit of Truth is what helps us be willing to face into that challenge to keep growing, to keep learning, to keep expanding. We thank the two of you for being part of us, for giving us this extra-special reality we call being human, being a child of God, being a spiritual being. We thank you very much. Amen.
Lesson
MICHAEL: Good evening, this is Michael. This is your Creator Son and your closest friend. Yes, we are very much a part of you, and we do so enjoy it when you take time out of your busy lives like this to come and join us; to open your minds; to imagine and use all of your creative spirit to trust what we say and really strive to understand it; and to open your hearts to feel–which is an even greater trust. For we know what it is to rely upon our words and ride along with us and trust that we are not going to suddenly drop you. In this way you discover your own strength, your own power, that spiritual power you have of how you take everything.
Stillness
Embracing your own involvement in life
We’ve given a lot of lessons recently on the mysterious and unfathomable nature of personality itself, this fundamental reality that you are. It’s even a little scary for some folks because it is so unfathomable: it is so endless, so expansive. As spiritual beings you have an innate creativity and this creativity is involved in everything–even as you listen to me now or read these words later. You are involved, inextricably involved in your own life, and your own life is a faithful mirror of this involvement. There is a limit to what or how much you can be uninvolved without really affecting your health and your strength. Rather, it’s your very ability to be a creative agent in your life and for those around you. This very power is something you have to embrace.
You have great spiritual influences right within you. As in your introduction tonight, we are part of you, Mother Spirit and me. Then there’s your Father Fragment, this Mystery Monitor whereby God experiences your life with you. You have the ultimate freedom to ignore us and go solely on your own self-created image and feeling of yourself. But then that very freedom makes it possible for you to give us yourself. You choose to go into stillness and, in a way, just relax out of your own life of all your ongoing concerns and desires, worries, and plans. Just let all that subside so that you can feel; and feel us within you. This is the most sincere form of worship, of appreciation.
Appreciation
Worship and appreciation
This appreciation is active insofar as you give us reality. You give us value by acknowledging our presence within you. It’s passive insofar as it’s just a relaxing opening of yourself to receive. So it’s both an active and passive thing, this appreciation. This worship is also what you can give your own life. Do you appreciate being alive? Do you appreciate that life itself is some ungraspable cosmic reality that is so much a part of you that you can’t separate yourself from it. You’re a living being in this life of yours: your life: your life as a unique personality. Even this is your own. Eternal life is not forced upon anyone. This is the absolute choice you have: to be a part of your own life, to have that absolute choice.
And also: that choice is so wonderful if you can feel it, if you can realize it as you go along. This gives you the ability–this acceptance, this worship; this appreciation of life gives you the ability to respond to this whole creation you are wrapped up in, also inextricably. You have a cynical saying, that, “Well, there is no free lunch;”–that nothing is free. On the other hand it’s all free; it’s all a gift, a gift that promises eternity if you so choose. This is what God has put in your hands just by creating you as the kind of being that you are.
So it’s nice in your stillness just to feel yourself being alive, suspending everything else so you can feel yourself breathing; just to feel that next breath coming all by itself. Then to realize you are not keeping your own heart beating: this is God’s supreme gift that makes you and your life a part of the Supremacy of the cosmos. Here is his whole creation riding on your next heartbeat, and then the next. This is the unfathomable depth of stillness–just appreciating life itself, something seemingly so universal yet so ungraspable, surrounding you in all the plants and animals, and all your friends. And then as Mother Spirit said, all the trillion of trillions of trillions of personal beings throughout creation, all forming this brotherhood and sisterhood.
So think about this appreciation. Think about the passive aspect of it as just realizing: there it is, and it’s all a gift. And yet to actively recognize it, to realize it, to have it real for you, especially in those moments of despair, or depression, or pain: to weigh in with your free will; to weigh in with your own personal power to positively appreciate it. This gives you the ability to respond, the ability to be adequate to the moment because here it comes, the next moment. Here is another heartbeat God has given you. This is the most sincere form of worship, of thanks-giving, this appreciation: and we feel it–Mother Spirit and I–when you say “Hello.” And for certain God’s presence right within you feels it too.
So this is my message tonight, dear ones. I encourage you to be part of your own life, and also, to relax out of it from time to time and just feel what’s coming down. Stay with this living body of yours for a while. Appreciate it. Love it. Take good care of it. Be healthy and strong. And then–when it’s required, when the situation itself asks of you to knowingly, consciously, willfully put yourself behind it–this life of yours, you will be able to respond. This is the greatest gift you can give all of us, especially those others you share your life with.
So thank you, Father, for giving your children this freedom, for giving them this ability to have their own life. Now if you have any questions or comments…
Dialogue
Student: (not recorded, but something about hesitating to trust in what Michael is saying, but finding the wherewithal to do so; and the reward. And something about thanking him for his patience with us?)
Faith
Patience; and healing through faith
MICHAEL: Yes, my daughter. We teased the group one time many years ago that for Mother Spirit and I, we don’t exactly require patience. That’s more of a wonderful human attribute that you–again–as part of that willing, positive assertion of yourself when you feel yourself getting a little stretched out, a little impatient–you can actually change your orientation. When you are totally right in sync with things, you really don’t need patience. But that’s another dimension to grow in.
I take it for a complement. Thank you.
Student: (not recorded: something about the Urantia Book stating a Creator Son will have only one human-type manifestation in the history of his Local Universe? And something about Jesus healing a man brought to him, by his own faith?)
MICHAEL: I regret that I cannot tell you exactly when I will manifest myself again, but that day will be different. The Urantia Book was speaking mostly to the uniqueness of a Creator Son: the singleness of his manifestation as a human being in a Local Universe is a very singular affair.
I would like to reemphasize at this time, my daughter, that it is your faith that heals you. This is not just an expression or something nice to say: it’s the truth. As you probably know there are endless examples of people with very severe diseases of different kinds that the medical people talk about as spontaneous remissions, of a cancer shall we say. At the same time we have to emphasize that those who are severely afflicted and are unable to heal themselves; this cannot be in any way taken as simply a lack of faith. The physical bodies you are so closely associated with in this your first life, they do obey to a large degree an inextricable Natural Law. So it cannot be taken as any kind of criticism that anybody, even with the deepest faith, cannot heal themselves. Sometimes it does go beyond a certain limit–but that is something that cannot be quantified.
I must apologize for wrapping a mystery in a puzzle here. I can only encourage you to live by your faith as deeply as you can, and with those afflictions that come to visit you. Again, in your stillness, in your meditation and your worship, do your best to understand. Open yourself to understanding everything involved, and have faith that there is an end to all suffering. There is a reward to all sincere effort, if not in this lifetime then definitely in those to come.
Student: (not recorded)
MICHAEL: Thank you, my daughter. Faith is like the attributes of worship and appreciation. There is a wonderful humility in the enormity of what you can receive, even what you are given–your heartbeat, your breath; this body of yours that you’ve been given to connect you with this world around you. Yet faith is also an assertion. It’s the courage to extend yourself out beyond what you know for sure. And then it is rewarded. Faith is rewarded by fact. You believe, and then because of that belief, something happens. Thank you–for everything. Be in my peace.
Materialization
Student: (Unrecorded—perhaps asking if the spiritual family is waiting on further planetary technological development in order to make themselves more apparent?)
Technology and the spiritual family
MICHAEL: Yes, my daughter, the limit here is one of your own free will. For as you know it is not the way of spirit to impose itself upon its own children, its own creation, even in terms of overwhelming them with awe. So this is our own… I guess in human terms you would think of it as self-imposed limitations. But it’s not really a limitation: it’s just our nature. We are very careful not to intrude upon anyone’s free will, even to overawe them with, shall we say, demonstrations of miraculous power. So we rely upon this: this is where we are your servants. We literally rely upon your faith.
It’s even your own spirit of truth that’s right within you, that’s weighing what I’m saying to you at this moment. It is you that is giving me reality by feeling me in your heart. The technology that we’re using right now (Ed: the telephone) depends upon your taking a part out of your life to listen like this, and value what I’m saying. So this is the greatest limitation. It’s why we don’t–the whole celestial family doesn’t suddenly decide to come down, and, shall we say, manifest itself more concretely than it’s always already doing. This is–from a human standpoint–a very tricky thing: how do you help autonomous beings with their own free will, when we have created them and encouraged them to be these autonomous beings! (Michael laughs)
It’s not exactly a problem. It’s a glory, in a way. It’s what I meant by your very ability to ignore us: it’s such a gift, then, that you can give us your attention. So these are the limitations. We don’t need technology to manifest ourselves. That we can do so very concretely, shows you–very physically–what we choose not to do of our own nature. Does that make sense to you, my dear?
Student: (not recorded)
MICHAEL: In one way, my daughter, we are using your technology. After all, this is a Teaching Mission that is being disseminated over the internet all around the world for whomever wants to tune in. Again I can say: we don’t necessarily need this technology.
We choose to come through living human beings for all the limitations. As you know, every t/r has and brings a whole cosmos of experience to this process, which inadvertently, unavoidably does limit us somewhat–though we’ve always chosen to do things this way. This was why I had to refuse–when I was among you–to answer some very valid doubts as to my nature. Why didn’t I, shall we say, do certain seeming-miracles on command? I could not. It’s not our nature: and I had to accept the full human consequences of that nature. So thank you for your question. Thank you.
Student: (not recorded)
MICHAEL: Thank you, my dear. And again I thank my Father for giving me the opportunity I had to demonstrate my nature. Be in my peace.
Student: (not recorded)
Expectations
Enthusiasm vs. expectations
MICHAEL: Yes, my son. There is a very distinct difference between enthusiasm–which in one way is just a general appreciation for being alive, welcoming even the ups and down of life, the pleasure and the pains of all the things that come of having dear friends, and then losing dear friends–a very distinct difference between this enthusiasm and expectations. Expectations are a little more definite aren’t they? They’re a little more focused, a bit more particular about something you hope will come about. The essence of disappointment is when these expectations don’t materialize. All your wisdom and understanding, your knowledge, even your science is based upon expectations. With any scientific theory: how good is it at predicting what’s going to happen? And with your enormously complex lives in the society you live in, you’re living in the middle of dozens of expectations going along with you. They’re your own best ability to predict what’s going to happen as precisely as you can. And yet those expectations do go awry.
You are in the middle of an enormous situation with no boundaries anywhere, so these expectations are bound to fail from time to time. And that’s the feeling of dis-appointment. Not to play on words, but it’s like you have appointment to make with fate, with the totality of all you are caught up in, and that appointment just doesn’t work: and you are dis-appointed. (laughter) You are left in the lurch. It didn’t happen.
But again, my son, you are a spiritual being. You are a creative being and you have some say, you have some ability to respond to just how you take that disappointment. And so we can only encourage you to, as much as possible, keep this in mind: that disappointment is to a large degree how you take it determining what it becomes for you. Does this seem to make sense? You can be enhanced by it. You can learn from it. But human beings are so constructed psychologically that you have this strange ability of denial; you can live split in two. Part of you experiences something, and yet a greater part of you chooses not to know that. This is a possibility. One way you can handle disappointments is to deny them. You refuse to acknowledge them, literally refuse to experience them, and there is nothing more deadly for an experiential being because experience is the purpose of your life. What you give your soul is your experience. So we can only encourage you to use that word “encourage” with yourselves. Allow these moments to stretch you. Have the courage to embrace them and learn from them. Let them be that positive thing then. Be in my peace.
Student: (not recorded)
Prayer
Receiving inner thoughts from another
MICHAEL: Yes, my son. Your Thought Adjuster is yours; that’s why we say it is “your” Thought Adjuster. This is an individualized presence of God that is depending upon you to provide experience. The greatest failing you can make to your Thought Adjuster, and yourself, is to stop experiencing. Now one of the experiences you can have–like completing the circle–is being open to your Thought Adjuster. This is one of the main glories and rewards of stillness. You can’t hold your mind still: that’s still “you” trying to go for some particular effect, shall we say. Rather, just take time out of your life to be still and not go for some psychological effect of just sitting there to feel good; or whatever. You are just opening yourself to whatever suggests itself, and in this way you can address your Thought Adjuster. This is the essential form of all prayer, of asking for help. It can be about a particular problem, but you can also say, “OK, dear friend of mine, closest Being to me, part of me, ‘What do you have for me today?’”–and just start journaling. Start writing what thoughts come into your mind.
You can also request a spiritual helper. This is how a lot of those you call t/r’s–these receivers of our transmissions–how they trained. They just sat down and asked for a helper, because there are so many who would love to share your life with you. These are very discreet angelic-type of beings who would really enjoy sharing your life with you. And they can just start speaking to you.
Angelic Contact
It’s easiest to recognize this when it comes from another point of view, so I can’t over-emphasize how strange this is at first, to have another being inside you giving you their thoughts. The exercise here, my son, is to try to be as totally one as you can with these thoughts, because it takes practice. It’s hard for you to credit at first. Sometimes people have an expectation that their Thought Adjuster, or this friend of theirs, this celestial friend, will start speaking audibly in their minds. But this is thought adjusting from the presence of God. Or this is opening your mind to another being who will just be thinking within you. So you can see the challenge of this.
But let me tease you with the reward of this, of having a celestial being kind-of taking over your hand and writing to you. You cannot anticipate what this will be, and that is the very value of it–entering a space, a state of mind, highly consciously, in which you cannot anticipate what’s going to happen next. But that is the essence of receiving a celestial transmission. So I encourage you to try it. Its uniquely difficult in a way and yet it’s uniquely possible for everyone.
It does require faith. My son, have faith in yourself. Have faith you really want this to happen, and have faith that you’re not kidding yourself or deluding yourself. It takes a suspension of doubt, if you will, but the rewards are commensurate. It’s also teaching you a unique and wonderful ability of trust in yourself and in the spiritual family. Do give it a try, and be in my peace. (pause)
MICHAEL: Are there any more questions or comments? This is one of the most wonderful gifts you can bring Mother Spirit and me–opening your hearts and opening your minds too.
Student: (not recorded but provided later) Michael I have a question for you along the lines of our discussion on expectation and disappointment. We know from the Urantia book that the Archangel Gabriel made a pronouncement to Mary that she was to be with child. By faith she accepted that proclamation and by expectation and faith of the promise she waited for it to become. So we likewise recently have received a message from upon high that your return is imminent. By faith we are in expectation of that pronouncement. My question is: how are we to view this? I know if I tell my son I will pick him up at the park, he is in expectation that I will carry out my promise.
Materialization
Again: enthusiasm vs. expectations
MICHAEL: Yes, my son, which is the exact difference between enthusiasm and a precise expectation. I cannot at this time tell you exactly when this will be; it depends upon so many factors. And so I encourage you to have enthusiasm for what this means to you now, this moment, and eschew any kind of precise expectations. This I can only ask of you. This can be your gift to me, your enthusiasm for me, and my life, and what I mean to you. Do not put this expectation upon me, a precise expectation saying if I do not show up at such and such a time; for I have not made, and I will not make that promise–as you do to your son. This is the only way I cannot leave you in the lurch.
Do not put these expectations upon me, or upon Mother Spirit, or upon your own Thought Adjuster, or upon the spiritual community. Have the courage, and faith, and trust to live in enthusiasm. Live in a joy of life, in the moment, now, this eternal now. And in your meditations and in your prayers, try to be self-consciously aware of your expectations and what you are asking of life. I know this is a kind of supreme request, but it is what spirit requests of you, my son. If you will, surround all your concrete expectations with this general but profound enthusiasm for life itself. That way your disappointments will be happening within this larger humility, this larger context. How does that feel to you?
Student: (not recorded but supplied later) I am not expecting any more than what was promised, and personally I care not whether you come to me or I to you. I know eventually we shall be together. Thank you, Father Michael.
MICHAEL: Thank you, my son. Your faith in me is the greatest gift you can give. I thank you.
Closing
The challenge and reward of endless curiosity
My children, the hour grows late, and if there are no more pressing questions I’ll wrap this up. I thank you for your questions. I thank you for your believing, trusting hearts, and I thank you for your curiosity, that wonderful, wonderful attribute you share with all the spiritual family. One of the most wonderful gifts of our Father is this curiosity, this wondering, for it is so much a part of your humility–that wonderful feeling you get in the presence of something so enormous. It leads you forward–though some might consider it a curse–(Michael laughs)–just to be so curious.
Because beyond the Supreme is the Ultimate–to know that your curiosity will never be ultimately fulfilled; to know that your life on into the future is forever opening. But then to have faith in that!–to thank our Father for setting it all up this way and making it truly unfathomable, right in your own personality. You have the wisdom now, and can say with a deep sense of irony what a precious gift curiosity is, that invitation to the endless adventure of discovery.
Thank you for coming to be with me this evening. I bid you a good evening. Continue to be in my peace. Continue to give me that ultimate gift of your faith, faith in me and faith in Mother Spirit, faith in our Father.
